Weekend

Ciao Ciao-

 

Eventful couple of days in Favara. It snowed on Saturday! It wasn’t really snow, more like frozen rain, but nonetheless everyone was excited and amazed. I got to talk to the family a little bit, saw the dogs, Andree and Franck up at the ski house. Just for a little while, I realized after I had so much to tell them, but it was too late. I went to make a cake for Ulriche’s (The German exchange student) birthday. Ditte, the student from Denmark, showed us how to make a traditional Danish cake. It was nice:

 

Strawberries in the shape of a “U” for Ulriche

Sugar Glaze

Layer of Cake

Bananas

Nutella

Layer of Cake

Pudding

Layer of Cake

 

Yummy. We then went for a walk up to a church I hadn’t seen yet. It was good, I got to speak some English which was nice and relaxing, because I have been doing so much Italian! Then we went to Urliche’s birthday party. I took a bunch of pictures, ate a bunch of pizza, and then got really, really tired. It was so nice to know that I could sleep late on Sunday (today).

 

Saturday’s school was pretty strange and boring, because it was Valentine’s Day, and only four students showed up to the class. We did a LOT of sitting around, until two o clock. Longest day yet, and with little to do.

 

Anyways, it was really nice to sleep in this morning, until 11 45 or so. I woke up and read a little in “ The Great Gatsby” for a little while. I’m really liking it. Finally got out of bed, uploaded and checked out some of my new pictures, which I will post later, and ate a big lunch of cous cous and chicken. Delicious! Then Gerlando and I went on a long walk around Favara. At one point he stopped and said, “now you have officially seen the ugliest place in the world!” He was referring to the decrepit old section of Favara, where there is garbage everywhere, and the old abandoned houses are ruled by gangs of stray cats and dogs. It was pretty nice out today, the sun was out for most of the day, and now the light penetrating the clouds over the sea is magnificent.

 

Something I have been noticing a lot here is the contrast between the sky and the city. The dramatic and beautiful sky doesn’t quite fit with the not so beautiful, industrial sprawl of Favara. You can see it in the pictures, I have been trying to focus on it. I think it could make for an interesting video piece.

 

So today I went to photograph the great grandmother (90 years old) and grandmother of Gerlando in their house. The light wasn’t so great, but I think I got some good stuff. I did two nice video portraits, which I am pretty excited about, but I have been battling hard drive space on my computer. I’ve been backing up a lot, but it still doesn’t always make enough room for my pictures and video. I’ll figure it out.

 

I am hoping to go see Benjamin Button tonight in Agrigento with some friends. We need to find a ride. If not Gerlando and I are going to watch Tropic Thunder here. Either way I am getting some good old American cinema. (Benjamin Button would be in Italian which would be cool).

 

OK a domain!

 

Zander